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Kyle Ringo Blog: No deadline for CU Buffs to raise $50 million

By Kyle Ringo

Posted:
07/23/2013 03:36:30 PM MDT

Updated:
07/23/2013 03:36:43 PM MDT

A handful of published reports this spring and summer have indicated the University of Colorado athletic department is facing a December deadline under the terms of football coach Mike MacIntyre's contract to raise $50 million for facilities upgrades.

Those reports are inaccurate.

MacIntyre's contract does include deadlines related to facilities upgrades, but those clauses do not include any mention of funding, let alone specific amounts or deadlines for raising them.

There are two clauses that require the school to meet deadlines. The first calls for a program plan for a Football/Athletics Operations Center to be submitted to the Board of Regents by Dec. 1 of this year. It simply needs to be submitted by that date and not approved.

The second clause requires of the school: "If the award of the design contract has not been made or the design bid build contract has not been executed, depending on he method of project delivery, for the Football/Athletics Operation Center on or before Dec. 1, 2014 no liquidated damages shall be due for termination of the contract from that date forward."

The clauses were put in place when MacIntyre was hired in December to serve as motivation for the school to begin planning for facilities upgrades in and around Folsom Field. If the school does not meet the deadlines, MacIntyre would not have to pay a buyout if he chose to take another job at any point during the life of his contract.

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So basically, CU has to simply submit some paperwork to the regents by Dec. 1 this year to fulfill the first clause and has to hire an architect by December 2014 to meet the second clause.

So even though new athletic director Rick George said at his introductory press conference that he believes he can raise the $50 million quickly, he is under no obligation to raise that money by any specific date.

Former athletic director Mike Bohn's plan was to begin construction first on a new student-athlete academic center under the club level on the east side of Folsom Field as soon as the department raised the first $8 million of the $50 million in private funding the school has targeted. Remember the school also intends to finance $120 million of the $170 million project that would enclose the north end of the stadium, expand the Dal Ward Center and build a new permanent indoor practice facility.

It remains to be seen if George will take a different approach or if he will also make the academic center the top priority.

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